Katie loves flying, loves the sensation that rushes through her as she and her broomstick shoot from the ground, loves the wind in her ears as she flies, defying gravity as she soars up, up, up with the birds. There's a grace to her flight, a ballet of blurred motion and speed that makes it look natural for a human to fly, as though she's not riding a broomstick at all but has sprouted wings. She may be painfully clumsy on the ground, but in the air, nothing can pin this bird down.

When she touches the necklace outside the Three Broomsticks, that's not flying at all - that's drowning in the air, her unearthly screams letting the world know that this bird's wings are being clipped, broken, that she is falling, losing her famous grace, tumbling in her dance.

When the curse in the necklace makes her gradually lose her eyesight until all she can see are shadows, the pain burns all the worse because she knows she cannot fly, not ever again, that this bird is pinned to earth, that she will never again be the graceful airborne ballerina that dazzled at Quidditch tryouts and shut up the critics who said she would trip over anything with her eyes open or shut. She can never shut them up again, because now they're right, they'll forever be right.

The broken bird wants to sit down and cry at her double curses (nobody dares to say she hasn't got the right), but that last bit of courageous Gryffindor lion in her dries the tears before they fall thick and fast from her near-sightless eyes. She can't give up - that's the cowardly way out. She'll pick up the pieces and gather the strength, and maybe, just maybe, she'll stretch her wings again.

Katie loves flying, and she'll fly again one day, dance in her aerial ballet as she soars up, up, up with the birds.

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